Newtonica

There's long been a correlation between dance music and video games. The technical nature of both means that often they fit together like peanut butter and chocolate - the stylised nature of many games directly mirroring the clinical one of trance and techno. It's no surprise then that the iPhone, a bastion of sleek technology, is becoming home to titles that merge these two artistic forms.

Newtonica is one the flashiest examples of such a marriage and is almost too simple for its own good. In terms of interaction, your job is to rotate a star panel sphere consisting of two different colours, pink and purple. In essence, you're twirling a ball about as meteors fall from the sky and crash into its surface. The idea is to rotate said ball so that the meteors, which are either pink or purple themselves, hit the corresponding colours.

Doing so increases your life gauge, while mismatching a meteor with the wrong colour on the sphere detracts from the gauge. It's important you're making the matches because you have just three lives in each level. Moving the sphere itself is no more taxing than holding your finger down on the screen and flicking it either way, literally spinning it on its axis. When meteors of opposing colours begin falling at a pace, you really will need to spin it rather quickly.

Progression relies on a succession of positive hits, enabling you to move up from one level to the next. Of course, a string of failures brings the game to a close - and that's what Newtonica is about: survival. While matching colours doesn't sound especially taxing, as each level passes it becomes increasingly challenging. You find yourself going from a steady flow of meteors to a barrage of consecutive meteors with impacts that almost overlap each other.

This is where quick decision-making becomes key, as simply rotating the ball so that a pink meteor hits a pink part of the surface won't do. Rather, keeping things on the edge becomes crucial. There's a fair chance that meteors of each colour will follow each other, meaning you need to have the sphere in a position where you can readily switch between the two colours. Things do get rather hectic, but luckily the game's soundtrack adds a melodic touch to proceedings.

Taking an especially techno bent, the music is directly linked to your progression. Each addition to your life gauge adding a component to the track itself, building it to a crescendo in its final segment. It's a simple way of conveying the tension that builds as play moves on and is far more than the gimmick it might first appear to be.

Indeed, you only need play with the sound muted to discover that Newtonica is only half the package without its soundtrack. It almost keys into your own rhythm to inspire you to keep going. As the levels pass and the meteors start flying, you'll need that rhythm to have any joy whatsoever. Playing Newtonica is much like learning a new language that isn't of any use outside the game, but one that eventually enables you to flick your sphere around with almost frightening speed and accuracy.

It's only problem is, it may well be a little too challenging, the average player finding that they never progress beyond five or so minutes of play. It'll be up to them to evaluate whether such short doses are worth paying out £2.99/$4.99 for what could be just a little nugget of gaming, but those who do shell out the fee could find themselves spinning out on an almost perfect planet as a result.